Of Birthday Pie and Takeout Chinese
by deathfrisbees
Summary: Natara tries to plan a birthday party for Mal, and wants everything to be perfect. Everything is not perfect. Rated T for suggestive references.


"When he comes in that door," Natara announced, gesturing to the front door of Mal's apartment, "I want you all to yell surprise."

"Can we-"  
"No, Kai, you cannot throw the pie in Mal's face."  
"Why do we even have a pie here? If it's his birthday, shouldn't we have a cake?" Blaise asked.  
"They didn't have any cake mix."  
"That's what you get for planning a surprise party on the day that it's supposed to happen."

Natara shot her a glare.

"Why are you uptight, Natara? Got you pretty Fed panties in a twist?" Blaise shot back.  
"I... I just want everything to be nice for Mal. He never has nice birthdays."  
"His birthday was awesome last year!" Kai said, injecting himself back into the conversation.  
"All he did was catch a criminal and eat Chinese takeout." Natara said, turning to Kai.  
"That's what I would want to do on my birthday!"  
"What?"

Natara whirled around on her heel. Preoccupied with talking to Blaise and Kai, she had not seen Amy and Jeremy trying to gesture to her that Mal had entered the apartment.  
"...Surprise?"

•••

"Kai, what did you do to my pie?" asked Natara, looking at her pie, where the edges had been picked off.  
"Why do you assume I did that?"  
"Because you've been standing next to the pie and eyeing it since you got here."

"Um, wait a minute, 'your' pie? You made that from scratch?" Blaise interjected.  
"Yes. Why?"  
"You can make a pie from scratch, but you can't make a cake without a pre-made mix?"  
"Blaise-" Natara said, taking a step towards her.  
Jeremy quickly stepped between them, laughing nervously.

"Haha, okay, lets cut the pie now," he said, looking between Natara and Blaise, who were glaring daggers at one another once again, and at the knife on the counter that Natara had been about to cut the pie with. Amy hurried over and quickly slid the knife out of Blaise and Natara's reach before cutting six slices from the pie.

•••

"Kai, we are not playing Twister." Mal stated.  
"Why not?"  
"Well, for starters, I don't even have a Twister board, and even if I did, we wouldn't be playing because that game puts people into awkward and sometimes sexual situations."

"Dear Malachi, I have played Twister with many other men before, and I maintain my heterosexuality."  
"Considering you just called me 'Dear Malachi,' I'm not so sure."

"We could play Spin The Bottle..." Blaise suggested with a sly smile.

A few minutes later, Mal, Natara, Kai, Blaise, Jeremy, and Amy were sitting in a circle around Mal's coffee table, which had been cleared of half empty coffee mugs from the previous days and other odds and ends. Natara placed an empty wine bottle that she had found in Mal's refrigerator in the center of the table.

"Okay, Mal, 'Mr. Birthday Boy', you go first." Natara said, earning an eye roll from the Mr. Birthday Boy in question.  
Mal took the bottle by it's neck and spun in until, after a few minutes, it landed... on Jeremy.

Both men made a mutual decision to abort the game.

•••

"Ooh, ooh, ohh! We should play strip poker!"

"Not in a million years, Kai."

"Wait, wait, wait, I've got it!" Kai said, pulling a laptop out of his messenger bag, or his "oversized man purse" as Blaise called it.

Just as they were about to ask what he was doing, Kai turned the screen of his laptop around to face the others, where they saw a Word document. Natara noticed it said "Page 1 of 154" in the corner.

Amy's eyes grew wide.  
"Oh, god, Kai, is that-"  
"'Hot Frisco Nights!'"

"Kai, you already read that whole thing to me in this lab the other day."  
"I know! You're so lucky! You're gonna get hear it twice!" Kai said in a singsong voice with a big grin on his face.

Kai took a big breath and began reading.

He wasn't even to the fourth page by the time Mal got up to get some wine.

•••

Just as Kai began on page 49 of 'Hot Frisco Nights,' the smoke detector of Mal's apartment began to blare.

"What the hell?" Blaise shouted above the noise.  
"Oh my god!" Kai said, shutting his laptop, "My muffins!"  
"You were making muffins?" Jeremy yelled.  
"They were birthday muffins!"

•••

Mal and Natara were all that remained of the party as they stood outside Mal's apartment building, along with the other residents of Mal's building. Luckily, there was no damage to anything but Mal's oven, but the SFFD had evacuated the building as a precaution.

"I'm sorry, Mal," Natara said as they leaned against a car outside Mal's apartment building.  
"For what?"  
"For giving you a bad birthday. This is your first birthday with me as your girlfriend and... I wanted to do something nice."

"Natara, you are a hopeless overachiever. You already gave me a great birthday."  
Natara looked at him, confused.  
"What? When?"  
"Last year."  
"You thought that was a great birthday?"  
"One of the best I've had."

Mal leaned over to press a kiss to Natara's lips.  
"And we could always recreate that. Takeout Chinese?"  
Natara smiled.  
"Takeout Chinese."

A/N: Hello, fellow Deathicated! I'm Lexi, some of you may know me if you have Tumblr (my URL is in my bio). I was going to write a fic for this fandom a while ago, but really couldn't think up a good plot. This idea came to me in the shower this morning, actually. Go figure. Also, don't ask me why I keep naming stories after food and drinks, I don't know, just really like food.  
Subscribe and review, please!  
-Lexi.


End file.
